Friday, October 30, 2009

It's difficult for many victims to believe it's possible to change how we think and live. For us, we believe victim consciousness is a self-evident truth. This means, we believe it's impossible for us to change.

We have become so consciously embedded with images of ourselves as powerless that we find it easier to remain mired in victimized lifestyles than take the action to do something about it. Unfortunately, this is a self-evident truth for victims.

We hold this truth self-evident, all victims think of ourselves as powerless to change the way we think and live.

Whenever we embrace or accept something, anything, as a self-evident truth, we become inextricably tied to victim beliefs. And as victims of our powerless beliefs, we embody information that keeps us in pain and suffering. It is from this level of pain and suffering that we must begin our activities to rebuild ourselves with empowered beliefs.

Some of the difficulties we face with overcoming beliefs that we believe are self-evident truths are our unwillingness to stop believing we are powerless. By powerless, we don't have to be poor, unemployed, anonymous. No, powerlessness is present whenever we encounter something in life that we believe we cannot overcome.

Powerlessness is what leads us to prayer, to meditation. It is present in all of us who have not achieved enlightenment.

Nevertheless, our nagging feelings on self-evident truths are real.They exist in us like axioms exist in mathematical equations. And like axioms, whenever something has already been established as valid, self-evident, there's no need for us to examine it any further. For us, nothing is further from the truth we seek.

For sentient beings seeking spiritual enlightenment there are no self-evident truths to define us today. We are so much greater than mathematical equations or societal labels. The only self-evident truths we have before us are those that define us with limitless power. Everything else is an illusion.

The utilitarian value of self-evident truths is immeasurable in terms of assisting us with understanding the true nature of self-evident truths, and their power to keep us victimized. We would have never known of their existence until we began our search to achieve enlightenment. However, now that we do, we must do everything we can to rid them from our consciousness.

Meanwhile, to remove self-evident truths from our beliefs system is done by thinking. We cannot just think, we must think clearly. For us to think without clarity is dangerous. And to think with victim beliefs is even worse; it's catastrophic.

For most of us, thinking is a pleasurable experience, if it's done properly. Unfortunately, when it's done improperly, we reap the benefits in dosages of pain and suffering. Although we interpret the benefits as bolstering our egos, they are the toxic thoughts acting as agents for our pain and suffering.

Similarly, most of us seldom, if ever, just think without any attachments whatsoever. We constantly think according to what we believe to be true about who we are in any given moment in time. This type of thinking is congruent with our acceptance of self-evident truths about our victimized lives.

Meanwhile, even when we think we're not thinking, we are. Every problem requires thinking. Every activity requires thinking. Everything in the future and past require thinking. And whenever we think, we are the centerpiece of the thinking.

Today, while living in the midst of great uncertainty in the world, we are thinking about many things. Foremost among them are our families, our health, our careers, and most importantly, our lives. We are not thinking very much about victim consciousness, because it appears everyone is now a victim of uncertainty. For some of us, this is a self-evident truth about the world we live in.

For those of us working to change how we think and live, we must eschew these types of self-evident truths. We must position our minds to perceive the world and ourselves existing with limitless possibilities for us to change how we think and live. To do this, we must think without attachments to victim beliefs.

For some of us, thinking without victim beliefs is unthinkable. We have become so accustomed to thinking and living as victims that we find it easier to engage in intellectual gymnastics about politics, religion, race, and so forth than to work on the victim beliefs causing us to think this way. We participate in so many mindless, meaningless conversations that we forget it's just us thinking and acting as victims in a world of uncertainty.

The more we embody self-evident truths of ourselves as victims, the more we belief our victim beliefs are sacrosanct. Moreover, we begin to believe and accept we were born into the world as victims. Unfortunately, it's this type of thinking that ties us to self-evident truths about human behavior. And this allows us to cling more tightly to our victim beliefs and accept our fates as victims.

Meanwhile, for us to overcome this type of thinking we must be willing to investigate everything we have been taught. And we must do this without using victim beliefs. In other words, we cannot cling to self-evident truths about religion, ethics, philosophy, psychology, and so forth. To do so, invalidates self-discovery. Moreover, why bother with self-discovery if we have already decided what's off limits.

While self-discovery is an ongoing process, it is also a liberating one. At each level of growth, we free ourselves from the previous one.

As victims, whenever we search for something, we begin by placing self-imposed restrictions on which beliefs we claim as sacrosanct, or those we're unwilling to examine. This is analogous to us searching for enlightenment and being unwilling to examine our attachments to spiritual dogma. This is what causes so many of us stop our search for enlightenment after a few years. We are unwilling to go to the next level by letting go of the beliefs that tie us to victim consciousness.

According to Seeds from the Ashes, "When you discover the wisdom hidden in your mind, you will know the truth about yourself."

Friday, October 23, 2009

For some of us, it's difficult to look beneath the surface of our problems and try to understand their origins. Even though many of us seldom give much thought to it, but when you think about it all problems come from somewhere. Someone is responsible for their existence. And regardless to whether we are struggling with burgeoning, out-of-control debts or crying over losing our jobs, we believe someone other than us is responsible for them.

A good way to illustrate the way we feel about our problems is to compare them to burglars. Problems are like burglars, they sneak into our minds whenever we are away from home. In this case, home is our mind focusing on achieving enlightenment.

If we take our focus off enlightenment, we leave ourselves vulnerable to having burglars entering our consciousness and stealing our thoughts.They take whatever they can without any consideration for the pain and suffering they're creating in our lives. And after our possessions, the beliefs we are clinging to, are gone, we panic. That's when we begin searching for someone to help us replace our lost beliefs.

During our search for the stolen beliefs, we believe we are searching for enlightenment. We want to replace the emptiness created by the loss of income, status in our community, and embarrassment with similar beliefs. In other words, we want to acquire our lost beliefs and redefine them as something else.

Nevertheless, if we took the time to careful examine the value of the possessions (beliefs) missing from our lives, we would know our love for them was responsible for the pain and suffering in our lives. It is our attachment to our possessions (beliefs) -- people, money, power, status, and so forth -- that keeps us inextricably tied to the problems in our lives.

Meanwhile, the problems we love and despise are not only valueless, but illusions. They exist in reality based on the power, or lack thereof, we empower them with. Most of our problems are not problems at all. They are expressions of our beliefs and actions. We birth them simply by thinking. In other words, we think our problems into our lives. This means our problems can never be greater that us because we created them.

Similarly, once we recognize we are the creators of our problems, then we clearly know we also are responsible for the solutions. By recognizing this simple act of inner power, it empowers us to approach our problems differently. It's much easier to face something we know we created by our actions. Now we're able to clearly see that the fears and doubts are lessened significantly.

For most of us, conditioned to live as victims for so long, it's natural to assign blame to others for the problems in our lives. We frequently believe the banks are responsible for us borrowing their money to purchase our homes, automobiles, boats, and so forth. This type of thinking absolves us from any responsibility in the transaction. Even though, we knew the contracts were shaky and weighted in favor of the banks.

Whenever we want to acquire some possessions, we seldom believe we might lose them later on due to reduction in income, illness or some other changes in our lives. Unfortunately, whenever something unforeseen happens that jeopardizes our possessions, we are thrown into deep depression and grief over it.

For us to overcome the personal setbacks affecting millions of us today, we must first reclaim our power over the situations we currently face. To do this, we must first recognize that no matter how difficult our problems might seem to us today, we have the power to overcome them.

We must also free ourselves from rationalizing about how our problems are responsible for our powerlessness, which cause us to believe we are victims in this world. We are not victims, because we know we are responsible for believing we are victims. And we know this is based on our thinking, which is caused by our beliefs.

For us to acquire power, we must change our beliefs. To do this, we must be willing to accept responsibility for what's currently happening in our lives, and know we have the power to change whatever that is.

In chapter nine in the book Seeds from the Ashes, the discussion on power is very clear:

"You and your thoughts are one, but you are greater than your thoughts... On the road to empowerment you clearly know that the power that created the universe is greater than the power that created the atomic bomb. Yet the power to create is present in both situations. The power to create anything comes from thoughts like the thoughts you have in your mind. This power is not is not a stranger, or an alien, or a god separate from you. This power is in your mind."

To order Seeds from the Ashes, please go to http://www.amazon.com/After you finishing reading the book, give it to someone who is struggling to overcome difficult problems.

Monday, October 19, 2009

We are what we think and eat. We act according to the foods and thoughts we put into our bodies and minds. The toxic foods we eat daily cause us all type of health issues, while the toxic thoughts we use to nourish our minds cause us all type of emotional pain and suffering. Even though we treat them separately, they are not. We are what we eat and think.

Regardless to how much we try to extricate what we eat from what we think, we experience over and over again the consequential results from our habits. When we eat uncontrollably, it effects how we think. Conversely, when we think uncontrollable thoughts, it effects what we eat.

Today, some of us are overweight from eating too much. Some of us are emotionally and psychological victimized from allowing too much dis- empowering information into our belief system. And to make matters even worse, many of us are doing both. That's why we find ourselves in the mess we are in today.

Whenever we find ourselves in a mess, overcome with physical and psychological problems,we want desperately to get out of it. Yet so many of us don't seem to know how to overcome difficult problems. We find that it's easier to try and ignore them rather than change our behavior. Perhaps we act in this manner because we are not quite ready to change our habits.

Nevertheless, some of us truly desire to change the way we are living, but we lack the commitment to follow through on our desires. In many instances, we engage in daydreaming, wishing, and hoping for blissful results without doing anything to change the thoughts and beliefs responsible for the problems.

The thought of true change is frightening to many of us. We like the idea, but not the work required to achieve the idea. We just can't seem to let go of the habitual activities causing the pain and suffering in lives. Oh, we know, at least intellectual, that empowerment is the correct word to use when we tell others about the work we are doing. Unfortunately, for some of us, it's just a word, an idea.

For some of us, we eschew the daily challenges to change what we think and eat. And, instead of doing something different, we continue to reach for the chocolate cake, potato chips, cheeseburger and foods contaminated by oils and other fatty substances.

Many of us watch too much television, play too many games with people and gadgets to truly understand how this behavior contributes to our actions. Whenever we compare ourselves to someone, whenever we feel powerless, angry, jealous or fearful, we place ourselves in victimized positions. This is what causes us to become overcome with pain and suffering.

Similarly, it is only when the toxic foods and beliefs have sicken us, weaken our resolve to commit to empowerment, that we search for diets or workshops to reign in our reckless behavior. Unfortunately at this point, we want instant results.

When we have eaten too much over time, we expect every diet or exercise program to bring us immediate weight loss, with toned, well-chiseled muscles. We also expect the workshops to immediately remove the anger, jealousy, lack, limitation and struggle from our lives and give us the peace and compassion we long for.

Meanwhile, when we don't get instant results from diets and workshops, we quickly discard the practices and return to our old eating and thinking habits. We rationalize away any benefits we derived from them. This type of reasoning permits us to return to our old habits of overeating and saturating our minds with deleterious information.

Whenever we stop and examine our lives, we discover things we would like to change. In most instances, we can imagine that the murderer, thief, or addict would like to change. What's stopping them? In nearly all cases, it's their beliefs and judgments about themselves and what people think about what they have done.

While many of us might not be murderers, thieves, or addicts, we have similar challenges just as daunting for us to overcome. We become hesitant to change because of what we think about being unemployed, bankrupt, or suffering from the distress of divorce, personal loss, and so forth. And like the prisoners, addicts, and failures, we must decide whether to change or remain as victims.

Well, some of us of are willing to change what we eat and think. And for us, having healthy diets, with regular exercise, and thinking positive thoughts of empowerment are fulfilling. We reach for an apple instead of chips. We read a book, affirmation or meditate instead of complaining about being unhappy with victim lifestyles. This is not a judgment, but an explanation of how we can change whatever we want to change.

There's a great quote in "Seeds from the Ashes" that reminds us of the importance of having healthy thoughts: "To envision yourself as a new person, you first must stop thinking of yourself as a victim."

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

We have an opportunity every day to use our power to overcome victim beliefs. We begin to see our opportunities when we change the way we think about ourselves. Although, in some instances, especially when we are overcome with worries and doubts, it's difficult to perceive problems as opportunities.

For some of us, thinking less of ourselves than who we really are, we perceive the world from the prism of pain and suffering. We have become too accustomed to clinging to the despair camouflaging itself as a problem rather than perceiving it as an opportunity.

The primary difference between an opportunity and a problem is how we approach life itself. If we believe we are victims, then most things we encounter in our daily activities become insurmountable problems. While, if we believe we are empowered enough to solve our problems, think we treat our problems as great opportunities for us learn and grow wiser.

What's the sense for living if we have few, if any, opportunities to develop our lives. The true blessings of our birthrights are contained in our actions to do things that are rewarding or fulfilling to our personal growth. Everything else is counterproductive.

Meanwhile, nearly all of our problems are caused by the doubts we have about who we are, and the power we possess. Our doubts are created by public opinion, people, beliefs in things -- money, power, fame -- and our unwillingness to accept ourselves as being powerful right now.

Power is not something we earn, it's part of our inherent birthrights. We are born with it. Our problems begin when we forget we were born with limitless power. The moment we accept ourselves as powerless is the moment we begin to search for it in people and things. This is the mindless journey that leads us on the road to pain and suffering.

Similarly, for us to believe we are powerless, incomplete, and inadequate is a slap in the face to our creator. This type of reasoning keeps us victimized, inextricably tied to victim beliefs. When we feel incomplete or powerless, we doubt who we really are. We seek to become like someone else; someone who has power. Who is that person? What do we need to do achieve our goal?

Nevertheless, as we chase after things we believe will make us into someone we admire or want to become like, we travel down man roads. Some of them lead us to other roads, while some roads lead us nowhere. Yet, in spite of the number of roads we travel, we are always the one traveling on them It's not someone else, just us.

Sometimes in our lives, perhaps in moments of great pain and suffering, we intuitively know we are greater than that which we are allowing ourselves to believe. This intuitive feeling, existing beyond the beliefs of right and wrong, becomes the light (awareness) to guide us to the road to empowerment. And on this road, we travel freely, without doubts about the power we have to change how we think and live.

On the road to empowerment, some of us continue to struggle with our doubts. We eschew thoughts of greatness and power within us in favor of searching for them in others. Unfortunately, the tools that lead us to others also plunges us deeper into despair and doubt. Yet, for many of us, these are the only tools we trust and use to enlighten or empower us.

For most of us, if we have build up a high tolerance for toxic victim beliefs, then we find it incredulous to believe in the existence of something else for us to use. So, out of habit, we use toxic victim thoughts to change victim behavior. As we know, this is impossible.

The side effects from toxic victim thoughts create more doubts and struggle. This reinforces our attachment to victim beliefs. And until we clear the toxins from our minds so that we truly know we are not born victims, but have been conditioned by others to think of ourselves as victims.

For us to go beyond our doubts and beliefs of ourselves as powerless, we must be willing to stop the victim behavior and remove the toxins from our minds. According to the book, Seeds from the Ashes,

"Whenever you feel powerless to do something that you want to do, stop and ask yourself why. Why don't you have the power to achieve the things that you desire to have? The obvious answer is that you don't believe you are strong enough to achieve them. If this is the case, then the solution to your problem is attaining the necessary strength or power to solve your problem."

Monday, October 5, 2009

The recent murder of a black teenager in Chicago by several other black youths has refocused our attention on the need to become involved in sharing our enlightenment experiences with others.

Today, as it was many yesterdays ago, we are discovering that there's a void of morality existing within so many people. It's difficult for many people, who believe they are victimized by their environments, to find the courage to change how they think and live. Sadly, their behavior is responsible for the deaths of thousands of young people each year.

The more we complain the more the violence seems to escalate. The more we retreat into our homes, close the doors and windows to the world outside, the more we become victims of youth terrorism. And, as victims, we believe all we can do is pray, hope, and curl up in fear, hoping the problem will solve itself. Unfortunately, we're just daydreaming.

The violence that's destroying the fruit of black, brown, and white families is spreading at a cancerous pace throughout the country. And unless those of us who know better do better, we will find ourselves mired in a quagmire of endless social destruction.

For us to change the attitudes and beliefs destroying so many young people, we must be willing to change our own attitudes and beliefs. This means parents, teachers, community and religious leaders must all begin to examine our own behavior. We must ask ourselves: what are we teaching our children?

In many cases, we don't have sufficient control over our own emotions to teach them anything, except how to perpetuate victim lifestyles. In other words, the violence and the beliefs stoking it, come from somewhere in our society. Whether we like it or not, some of us are directly responsible for what's happening in our neighborhoods.

For those of us committed to achieving enlightenment, this is an opportunity to evaluate our progress. We can teach others -- parents, adults, young people, and so forth -- how to overcome the victim beliefs that's causing the violence. We can provide them with examples of how to think, act, and live peaceful in the world.

Meanwhile, we can begin by embodying some healthy daily habits to empower our minds and bodies with nutrients that promote healthy attitudes and actions. Here's a few things we can do now:

1. Cook our children healthy meals.2. Spend time with them.3. Refrain from cursing and drinking, particularly in the presence of children.4. Treat others with respect.5. Think before spanking our children. (It's probably good not to spank them. And if you believe it's necessary, then refrain from beating them).6. Watch television as a family. (Monitor our children and prevent them from watching television alone for hours on end.)7. Encourage social interaction by inviting our neighbors' children over and vice versa.8. Teach our children the benefits of having moral principles to guide them in making decisions.9. Teach them to love themselves and believe in themselves.10. Teach them how to envision themselves with the power to overcome the obstacles they face in their lives.